Throughout the year, there are always many opportunities available to undergraduates to enhance your knowledge and experience in the field of Economics. Below are different types of opportunities currently available.
The Ec Department runs a Semester Undergraduate Program for Economics Research (SUPER), which pairs students with faculty for semester-long RA positions. The application and hiring cycle for Fall 2023 is now closed. The Spring 2024 cycle will accept applications starting in Dec/Jan. Please stay tuned on our website (and make sure you are signed up on our listserv to hear when SUPER is accepting applications).
Types of Opportunities:
Jobs, Research Analysts or Assistantships, Internships For Seniors Funding Opportunities Other Interesting Opportunities
Jobs, Research Analysts or Assistantships, Internships
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Research Assistant: Jared Ellias, professor at Harvard Law School, seeks full-time summer research assistants for empirical research on corporate bankruptcy and financial distress. Tasks will include reading and analyzing legal documents and business and financial data. To apply, please email Professor Ellias’ assistant Alina Kilcoyne (kkilcoyne@law.harvard.edu) with a resume, transcript and a short cover email detailing your familiarity with statistical analysis and Python. Prior familiarity with financial data, corporate law or bankruptcy is not necessary. Programming experience is not necessary but is helpful. Deadline: none given (posted 3/11/2024)
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Undergraduate Technology Innovation Fellows Program: HUTIF seeks sophomores and juniors for a collaborative founder development program, created by FAS, SEAS and HBS, which enables a group of 10-15 Harvard College students from any concentration to gain knowledge, skills, and a community, putting them on a path to launch and lead innovative endeavors. Fellows will participate in seminars and have access to opportunities usually only open to Harvard Business School MBA students, including elective classes, HBS CORe, a January startup bootcamp experience, and the opportunity for summer funding. Deadline: 3/11/2024 (posted 2/28/2024)
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Research Fellow: The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard seeks a student research fellow to carry out quantitative research on the ownership of rental housing for a summer-term appointment with the possibility of continuing into the fall semester. Deadline: none given (posted 2/8/2024)
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Research Assistant: Econometrics tutoring help needed for 10-20 hours for Visiting Fellow. Undergraduate or graduate student who is proficient in using STATA, R, and EVIEWS is desired for part time assistance. Knowledge of Python will be considered an added advantage. Pay scale negotiable. If interested, please send your resume to Prof. Richard Peiser at rpeiser@gsd.harvard.edu. Deadline: none given (posted 2/5/2024)
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Research Assistant: PhD students in the Harvard economics department (Matthew Lee Chen, Eu-Wayne Mok, and Yu-Jia Wang) seek research assistants to help with data collection for an early-stage project that explores how the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia conditioned political change in China over the course of the 20th century. Applicants considered on a rolling basis and should apply as soon as possible. Deadline: none given (posted 2/2/2024)
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Research Assistant: PhD student in the Harvard economics department (Matthew Lee Chen) seeks part-time research assistants for a project that seeks to understand how European exploration around the world conditioned a “culture of science” and imperialism at home. Deadline: none given (posted 2/2/2024)
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Summer 2024 Internship: Abdiel Capital seeks summer interns to read financial reports, interview sources, and collect and analyze data. Deadline: none given (posted 2/2/2024)
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Summer 24 Internship: The D. E. Shaw group seeks students with an expected grad term of Spring 2025 to apply to their summer 2024 internship program. Deadline: none given (posted 12/27/2023)
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Research Assistant: PhD student seeks a research assistant to work on an ongoing project focusing on the intersection between the peace processes and on-the-ground conflict. The role will mainly require scraping data, training a language model, and labelling data. If interested, email Emily Silcock at emilysilcock@fas.harvard.edu. Deadline: none given (posted 12/27/2023)
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Research Assistant: PhD student seeks a research assistant to work on an ongoing project focusing on the intersection between the peace processes and on-the-ground conflict. The role will mainly require combing through news reports to find details of their peace processes. If interested, email Emily Silcock at emilysilcock@fas.harvard.edu. Deadline: none given (posted 12/27/2023)
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Fiscal Internship Program: The Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s Fiscal Internship program engages students in fiscal policy by providing them with first-hand research experience at public policy institutions in Washington, DC. Interns are expected to live and work in DC. Deadline: none given (posted 12/15/2023)
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Research Assistant: Dr. Ashley Nunes (Harvard Law) is seeking an undergraduate research assistant to work on a project on the economics of decarbonization. Deadline: none given (posted 11/21/2023)
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Hudson Institute Political Studies Summer Fellowship: Hudson Institute Political Studies seeks undergraduates and recent graduates for a fellowship in political theory and practice including residance in complimentary housing in Washington, D.C. and receive a stipend of $3,000. Deadline: 12/30/2024 (posted 10/19/2023)
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Research Assistant: Professor Leo Bursztyn (UChicago Economics) and Aakaash Rao (Harvard Economics) seek an undergraduate research assistant to work on a project on American political campaigns. Deadline: none given (posted 10/10/2023)
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Research Assistant: Professor Alisha Holland (Government, Harvard) seeks a part-time RA with a strong command of Stata to help build and analyze a dataset of international infrastructure contracts for a study of electoral cycles in infrastructure contracting in the developing world. Deadline: none given (posted 9/1/2023)
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Research Assistant: Jared Ellias, a professor at Harvard Law School, seeks a Fall Semester research assistant through the Institute for Quantitative Social Science for empirical research on corporate bankruptcy and financial distress. To apply, contact Alina Kilcoyne (kkilcoyne@law.harvard.edu) with necessary materials. Deadline: none given (posted 8/30/2023)
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Research Assistant: The Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution lab at the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology seeks an RA for the Fall semester to work on a variety of computational and programming tasks. If interested, contact Mona Xue at culture.cognition.evo.lab@gmail.com. Deadline: none given (posted 8/14/2023)
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Research Assistant: Postdoctoral fellow seeks a part time research assistant, with experience with methods for causal inference and statistical software, to study and review economic applications of state-of-the-art causal inference and data science methods. If interested, please contact Davide Viviano at dviviano@fas.harvard.edu. Deadline: none given (posted 12/8/2022)
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Research Assistant: PhD Candidate seeks part-time undergrad research assistant to work on a set of research projects focused on capital cities in Latin American countries and in the U.S. If interested, contact Alice Xu at alice.xu@yale.edu. Deadline: none given (posted 3/24/2022)
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Various Summer Research Assistantships at the National Bureau of Economic Research
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Pathways to Research and Doctoral Careers (PREDOC): A one-stop place where undergraduate students from any backgrounds can find all the information they need, including available RA job positions around the country, educational material to prepare for e.g. data tests, guidance on courses to take, testimonials, and more.
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NBER RA page. Aggregates RA searches by NBER fellows.
For Seniors
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Research Assistant: The Aspen Economic Strategy Group (AESG) seeks a Research Assistant to support its work promoting evidence-based economic policy and support AESG’s Director and Policy Director, both PhD Economists, by producing original economic research and editing commissioned papers. Deadline: none given (posted 2/26/2024)
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Economist: Decision Economics, Inc. (DE) seeks a full-time economist to join their economic analysis and quantitative econometric model-based information system forecasting firm serving Corporations, Financial Institutions (Banks, Asset Managers and Traders), and Individuals. Part-time hours are possible for the right candidate. Deadline: none given (posted 1/22/2024)
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Research Staff Associate: Columbia Business School seeks a Research Staff Associate for the Economics Division to work on empirical and theoretical research on sovereign debt, the emergence, propagation, and resolution of sovereign debt crises. Deadline: none given (posted 1/3/2024)
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Pre-doctoral Researcher: Professors Tong Liu, Lira Mota, Christopher Palmer, and Kerry Siani seek full-time pre-doctoral research fellows for up to two years starting summer 2024 to collaborate on empirical projects in the fields of corporate finance, capital markets, macro-finance, entrepreneurial finance, household finance, and micro-econometrics. Deadline: none given (posted 12/13/2023)
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Pre-doctoral Researcher: Professors Joseph Doyle, Alexey Makarin, and Benjamin Vatter seek full-time pre-doctoral researchers to collaborate at all stages of the research process on new and ongoing empirical projects in applied economics. Deadline: none given (posted 12/13/2023)
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Pre-doctoral Researcher: Professor Mert Demirer, MIT Sloan, and Michael Rubens, UCLA, seek full-time research assistants for summer 2024 to collaborate on projects in industrial organization. Deadline: none given (posted 12/13/2023)
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Pre-doctoral Researcher: David Thesmar & Emil Verner, MIT Sloan, seek fulltime Technical Associates for at least one year, ideally two, beginning in July, 2024 to collaborate in all stages of the research process on a number of new and ongoing empirical projects in the fields of financial economics and macroeconomics. Deadline: none given (posted 12/13/2023)
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Pre-doctoral Researcher: Professors Charles Angelucci and Alexey Makarin at MIT Sloan School of Management seek a full-time Predoctoral Technical Associate to help conduct research for several projects in the areas of Political Economy, Economics of Media, Applied Microeconomics in Summer 2024. Deadline: none given (posted 11/22/2023)
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Research Assistant: The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seeks full-time, in-person research assistants to work with senior economists on a wide variety of economic policy issues related to the US economy, tax policy, international finance, political economy, financial services, and health care. Deadline: none given (posted 10/30/2023)
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Research Fellow: Prof Marcella Alsan, Director of the Health Inequality Lab at the Harvard Kennedy School, seeks full-time predoctoral research fellows to start in Summer 2024 to support and collaborate on a series of projects related to the economics of health inequality within the U.S. and around the globe. Deadline: none given (posted 10/26/2023)
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Strategy Associate: The Fidelity Foundations’ Strategy & Impact team seeks an associate for a strategy consulting role in social impact, with opportunity for learning and growth. Deadline: none given (posted 10/4/2023)
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Research Professional: The Booth School of Business at University of Chicago seeks full-time research assistants for a period of at least one year starting in Summer 2024. Deadline: none given (posted 10/3/2023)
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Predoctoral Research Assistants: The Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy & Finance at Princeton University seeks predoctoral research assistants interested in macroeconomics and finance, to start in summer 2024. Deadline: none given (posted 9/29/2023)
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Economics Consulting Analyst/Associate: The Antitrust and Competition Practice at Charles River Associates seeks economics consulting analyst/associates to apply the theoretical concepts learned in economics classes to real world data and problems. Deadline: none given (posted 9/29/2023)
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Associate: Secretariat, an international consulting firm, seeks Associates for Summer 2024 starts in its Washington, DC and San Francisco, CA offices. The Associate position is an entry-level position with opportunities for advancement. Deadline: none given (posted 9/21/2023)
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Economics Consulting Analyst/Associate Intern: Charles River Associates seeks candidates for their Summer Analyst/Associate Internship program, which is an 8-10 week program mirroring the analyst experience, working alongside senior colleagues to deliver live client consulting projects within the practice area. Deadline: none given (posted 9/12/2023)
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Economics Consulting Analyst/Associate: Charles River Associates seeks analysts at a variety of practices and locations. Deadline: none given (9/12/2023)
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Research Assistant: Economics professors Dan Benjamin (UCLA), David Cesarini (NYU), Patrick Turley (USC), statistical geneticist Alex Young (UCLA), and their co-authors seek full‐time research assistants at UCLA with start dates during the summer of 2024. Deadline: none given (posted 9/12/2023)
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Director’s Financial Analyst Program: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are recruiting for the Director’s Financial Analyst (DFA) position to start in June 2024. The DFA offers two-year full-time rotational fellowships designed to engage new entry professionals in public service work. Deadline: none given (posted 9/12/2023)
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Pre-Doctoral Fellowship: Economics professors David Laibson (Harvard University), James Choi (Yale University), and John Beshears (Harvard Business School) seek a full‐time predoctoral fellow for mid-June 2024, lasting until mid-July 2025, with a potential second-year renewal. This will involve work on theoretical and empirical research related to behavioral economics, decision making, household finance, and health behaviors. Deadline: none given (posted 8/31/2023)
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Research Assistant: The Federal Reserve system seeks research assistants for Spring and Summer of 2024 to work closely with economists on a variety of research questions and real-world policy issues. Deadline: none given (posted 8/30/2023)
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Research Assistant Program: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) seeks recent grads for their Research Assistant Program (RAP). Deadline: none given (posted 8/30/2023)
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Pre-Doctoral Technical Associate: Professors Georg Rilinger and Johan Chu seek a full-time Technical Associate research assistant (Predoc) to be based at the MIT Sloan School of Management for one year. Deadline: none given (posted 6/28/2023)
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Pre-Doctoral Technical Associate: Michelle Hanlon and Nemit Shroff in the Accounting Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management seek a full-time PA. Deadline: none given (posted 6/5/2023)
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Research Professional: The University of Chicago Booth School of Business seeks research professionals (RPs) to work directly with faculty on their research in the quantitative social sciences throughout two-year full-time appointments. Deadline: none given (posted 9/29/2022)
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Compilation of job opportunities for graduating seniors interested in research-based careers.
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NBER RA page. Aggregates RA searches by NBER fellows.
Funding Opportunities
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Harvard Culture Lab Innovation Fund: Funding opportunities for advancing diversity, inclusion, and belonging through technology driven solutions. All Harvard students, staff, faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and academic personnel are eligible to apply.
- All Harvard Fellowships from the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowship
- Harvard College Funding Sources Database
- Harvard University CARAT (Common Application for Funding and Travel)
- Making the Most of Funding Sources at Harvard (Powerpoint)
- Various links for funding opportunities in economics
- Echoing Green Fellowships for funding opportunities social entrepreneurship
- Frank N. Newman Undergraduate Research Fund in Economics, rolling acceptance
- The Davis Center for research related to Russia and Eurasia.
- Ec Dept Undergraduate Research and Travel Fund, rolling acceptance (thesis writers only)
- IQSS-OTD Entrepreneurship Program
Other Interesting Opportunities
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Seminars, Workshops, Conferences, etc:
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Participedia Summer School: Participedia seeks participants for their summer school program on Transnational Democratic Innovations taking place in person at three locations from June 10-15,2024, held in partnership with Memorial University, the University of the Western Cape, McMaster University, the Coady Institute, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Innovation for Policy Foundation, Missions Publiques, and Democracy International. Deadline: none given (posted 2/27/2024)
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Carroll Round Undergraduate Economics Research Conference: The Carroll Round conference provides a forum for undergrad economics students to present and discuss their original research in any subdiscipline. At the conference, students will have the opportunity to present their research and receive comments from current professors, economic practitioners, and other participants. Takes place at Georgetown University from April 19 to April 21, 2024. Deadline: 3/13/2024 (posted 11/14/2023)
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Zotero Workshops: Attend a Zotero class to learn how to easily save references, organize PDFs, create in-text citations & footnotes, and create bibliographies automatically.
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MATLAB Boot Camp: The primary objective is to familiarize students with the MATLAB computational environment. This boot camp does not suppose any prior experience with MATLAB or computation.
- Python Boot Camp: The Python Boot Camp is designed to provide an introduction to coding in Python. It assumes zero prior knowledge of Python or programming in general.
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Qualitative Research Workshops: Harvard Library workshops for students interested in using qualitative data and doing interview-based research.
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Student Groups:
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The Harvard Undergraduate Economics Association: HUEA is a forum for all students concentrating or interested in economics providing academic, professional, and social support through student mixers and intercollegiate networking events, career and internship panels, and topical discussions with faculty and professional economists.
- Harvard Undergrads for Inclusion in Economics (HUIE) works directly with the Harvard Economics Department to create a more diverse and inclusive community within the field. Join the club to help foster a supportive Economics community, learn more about research in Economics, and/or sign-up for their peer mentorship program. You can also follow HUIE on Twitter.
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Study Abroad:
- Interested in Study Abroad? Meet with Office of International Education (OIE) staff and student advisers during drop-ins Monday-Thursdays, 2-4pm to chat about the vast range of academic opportunities.
- Sophomores interested in spending junior spring at Oxford or Cambridge, applications are due in January and February. View an Oxford Visiting Student panel recording to learn more!
- Enjoy coffee on the OIE with one of your fellow Economics concentrators, Kate Downey and Dan Contreras, or any of the OIE Student Adviser team members! Reach out to schedule a time to connect.
- It’s never too early to start planning. Summer and fall term applications are due in early spring and spring term applications are due in early fall.
- Hear from fellow Economics Concentrators who are willing to share their study abroad experiences with you.
- Follow the Instagram stories of students abroad this term at HarvardOIE!
- Feel free to reach out to the OIE team (oie@fas.harvard.edu) and Nicole Garcia (ngarcia@fas.harvard.edu) with any questions or concerns.
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Other:
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Harvard Community Bus Trips to the Forest: Harvard students, faculty, fellows, and staff may sign up for one of several free monthly bus trips to visit Harvard Forest, located 70 miles west of Harvard Square. Trips will be geared towards undergraduate and graduate students; faculty, fellows, and staff are also welcome to sign up at no cost. Registration is first come first served.
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Interested in Development? Kiran Gajwani, part of our Ec Advising Team, is starting a casual discussion group for undergrads interested in issues facing lower-income countries. Kiran is a development economist and hopes to use this group to foster connections between development-interested students within the economics concentration and across the College more broadly. If you're interested, please fill out this super quick form! https://forms.gle/E9UpuHniH4qcJmNL7
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Big Brothers Big Sisters: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts seeks volunteers for their site based mentoring program. Volunteer a few hours a month on campus, at a local school, or out in the community. Deadline: none given (posted 9/20/2022)
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HUIE Mentorship Program: Harvard Undergraduates for Inclusion in Economics (HUIE) invites you to participate in our mentorship program! You will get personal mentorship from an upperclassman/woman/person or a graduate student about concentrating and/or finding a career in economics.
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Journal Calls for Undergrad Papers:
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Cornell Undergraduate Economic Review: CUER seeks submissions from undergraduates of past papers and original pieces, with no specific topic or length requirements. Deadline: 2/23/2024 (posted 2/9/2024)
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UCL Journal of Economics: The UJE seeks a broad range of submissions, from literature reviews to full-length research papers and academic essays related to economics. Deadline: 4/1/2024 (posted 1/30/2024)
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Competitions and Prizes:
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William & Mary Global Innovation Challenge: WMGIC invites teams of two to five to participate in a hack-a-thon style international development case competition open to undergraduate students. The Challenge encourages interdisciplinary collaboration between students to discuss and design innovative solutions to current global issues. Takes place virtually from 5pm EST on April 12, 2024 to 5pm EST on April 13, 2024. Deadline: rolling basis (posted 3/1/2024)
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Harvard Prize Office Prize Descriptions, for student achievements (esp. great for thesis writers: if you need to send thesis comments, contact econundergrad@fas.harvard.edu)
- Brevia, Harvard College Undergraduate Research Associate Publication, holds competitions, interviews, and writing submissions throughout the year.
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Career Panels and Advice:
- Econ RA Guide: Offers a community resource based off of current and former RAs in Economics.
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Graduate School Advertisements
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MSPH in Health Systems and MHS in Global Health Economics at Johns Hopkins
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PhD in Insurance Economics and Actuarial Analytics at University of Wisconsin School of Business
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Dual Masters in Applied Economics (CUHK) and Social and Economic Policy (Northwestern): Jointly developed by the Department of Economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University
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Teaching and Teacher Leadership: The Teaching and Teacher Leadership (TTL) master’s program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) applications are now open.
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PhD or MS degree at Michigan State University: Interested students will join a transdisciplinary and multi-institutional USDA-funded research project and pursue a PhD or MS degree at Michigan State University. This project will investigate the complex interactions and cumulative impacts of multiple shocks on the resilience and sustainability of agri-food systems in the U.S. Midwest and beyond.
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MSc in Applied Economics, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore)
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Master of Research in Economics, European University Institute
- MS program in Quantitative Economics at New York University: A new MS program to be offered jointly by the Economics Departments and the Stern School of Business.
- Columbia Business School: Online classes in business
- Barcelona Graduate School of Economics
- Kellogg Future Leaders. MBA deferred enrollment program. This program is for undergraduate seniors and master’s students with no work experience who can apply (and be accepted) before they finish their degree.
- PhD in Operations Management, NYU Stern School of Business
- MA programs at the George Washington University that focus on applied economics and international economic policy
- The New School : MA/MS Degree Programs in International Affairs
- Silver Scholars Program, Yale School of Management
- PhD in Economics at the University of Florida
- Master in Finance at Princeton University
- McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown
- School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan
- Systems Engineering, Cornell
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Blogs:
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The FRED Blog Visit the blog to learn more about FRED’s database, and get tips and lessons in data literacy.